Tisker, Tasker

February 2, 2011 4:39 PM

Help me learn how to use Tasker effectively.

I have looked at this wiki, and it seems that the instructions for setting up profiles often skip crucial steps, or my version of Tasker is different to the point that I am not seeing what they are (briefly) describing. I did just DL it a day or two ago, and some descriptions are a year or so old. My version of the app is from the app store.

Anyone have better or more detailed sources for profiles? I have read the user guide, but for now I want to get the phone to do a few things, learn how the app works by seeing and going through some examples, and then playing around. As you can tell, I don't really know what I am doing with Tasker, but I am willing to learn. Mostly by example.

Original Droid, btw.

posted by oflinkey to technology (5 answers total)

Lifehacker has a couple of articles. Those, plus googling for the various things I wanted it to do have brought me to a solid beginner stage of understanding. Can't figure out how to close Skype though.
posted by defcom1 at 7:59 PM on February 2, 2011

(Using Tasker I mean. I know how to close it manually)
posted by defcom1 at 7:59 PM on February 2, 2011

Thanks, defcom1. I have seen those, too, and it just seems like no one wants to give a step-by-step for simple things that 1) matches all the things I see on my phone, and 2) doesn't leave something out. For instance, the Lifehacker article with silencing the phone on flipping it over has yet to work for me on 3 tries. I guess I am not cut out to use Tasker.
posted by oflinkey at 8:55 PM on February 2, 2011

Can you tell us what you're trying to do? If you give specific tasks, I'd be happy to try to set them up on my phone and walk you through how I did it. (Disclaimer: So not a Tasker expert, but I've managed to make it do what I want it to do. Just with a lot of trial and error.)
posted by MeghanC at 8:59 PM on February 2, 2011

Like MeghanC said, what are you trying to do?
Have you tried these examples at lifehacker? Where are you getting stuck?
For example, my phone goes in silent, with wifi off, gps off from 8am to 5pm weekdays.
To set this up:
New (give name)
First Context - Select Day
Under Days - Select week day.
Select days you're at work (mon-fri for me)
Now you have task selection come up
Click new task (it may come up automatically if you have no tasks)
give it a name
Add an action (click +)
Select Audio Action
Select Silent Mode
Mode 'on' or 'vibrate', leave if unchecked
Click Done
Click done again.

You now tave a profile, under which you see (mon, tues, wed, thurs, fri) and a green arrow with the profile name
Now you want more context, not just mon-fri, but 8-5
select on the mon -> fri
now select add
select time
and you can select a from and to time. Click done
you can now see that you have two contexts. both must match before the tasks are executed. You can also add exit tasks, so when the context no longer matches, you can do specific things. by default tasker returns the phone to the state it was in before the action activated, but you can add specific things (i start skype on exit, and turn the volume up to max, so I can hear the phone at home)

Give this a shot, does it make sense?
posted by defcom1 at 3:08 AM on February 3, 2011